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An Overview of Employment Conditions for Language Teachers in Japan - Robert Aspinall
PDF Available here!
Dr. Robert Aspinall, author of Teacher’s Unions and Politics of Education in Japan, as well as numerous articles on Japanese education and language policy shared some “ eye opening” information with us about both past and present work conditions for language teachers in Japan.
Our meeting started off with Dr. Aspinall explaining in depth 3 different employment categories of foreign language teachers in Japan which were:
- ALTs and JET teachers who were either directly employed or “outsourced”.
- Eikaiwa teachers including self-employed.
- University, college and some private high school language teachers in a variety of contracts.
In the second part of Dr. Aspinall’s talk, he shared some very good, professional advice for those of us who might be seeking a long-term career in Japan as language teachers. Some of his advice was to become aware of, or join a group such as PALE (Professionalism, Administration and Leadership Education or SCOEP (Standing Committee on Employment Practices) or a union 
or JALT. He also stressed that there is great value in not only learning the Japanese language but also networking and establishing reliable contacts and professional relationships among Japanese staff and co-workers.
Considering today’s economic climate, Dr. Aspinall’s visit was a timely, useful and thoroughly researched presentation that was relevant to a great variety of English teachers at our meeting.
Reported by David Stephens
